


Aftermath

by hjea



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 01:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hjea/pseuds/hjea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Arrow drives back to Starling City after a job. Oliver reflects on his friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Also (nearly) known as "A Less Pretentious Way to Say Denouement". Many thanks to Carrie, both for reassuring me I'm not *too* rusty at this fic thing, and for then proceeding to beta this into some kind of coherent state. Any leftover blunders are all my own.

Oliver woke up, momentarily disoriented, until the rolling motion and moving lights dissolved not into a need to ready himself for a fight, but into the backseat of his car, where the headlights of another passing car briefly lit up the quiet nighttime highway. Oliver raised his head from the window he'd been leaning on to meet Diggle's eyes in the rearview mirror.  
  
“Looked like you needed that, Oliver.”  
  
Oliver grunted, and began to raise his hand to scrub at his eyes when he noticed the weight leaning against his arm and looked down onto the top of Felicity's head. Her head was bowed, lolling against his arm, her body limp and heavy in sleep, and now that his senses were more alert, he could just about hear her snoring very softly.  
  
He met Diggle's eyes in the mirror again, and the other man smiled at him. “She's pretty deep in it. I think if we're quiet we won't disturb her.”  
  
Oliver nodded again. “Good. She deserves it.”  
  
He knew Diggle had managed to get a bit of sleep before this latest little crusade of theirs had began, but he and Felicity had both been up for the past 36 hours. Although it was hardly the longest stretch any of them had gone without sleep—  
  
(“The Island,” Oliver had once given as his usual curt explanation.  
  
“Afghanistan.” Diggle added for his part.  
  
“MIT” chimed in Felicity.)  
  
—with the aftermath of the adrenalin crash following a job, if not exactly  _well_  done then at least successfully completed, it was enough for the exhaustion to take its toll as soon as they were safely away. Oliver recalled crawling into the backseat beside Felicity so she could show him something on her tablet—the last loose end tied up in neat Smoak fashion—but she had barely lasted five minutes into the drive before she set the device aside, her eyelids fighting the ever-losing battle to stay open, and muttered something about just resting for a second as her head fell back against her seat. Oliver supposed he hadn't made it much longer, really. He remembered Diggle turning onto the on-ramp for the highway, seeing the sign for Starling City as well as the other towns and cities on the coast, and then...

 

“Digg, you should get some sleep. Let me take over driving.”  
  
“I got another hour in me.” Diggle replied nonchalantly, once again displaying the maddening tendency to interpret every Queen demand as a polite suggestion. “That'll get us halfway to S.C. Then we can trade-off.”  
  
“Fine.” Equally maddeningly, Oliver didn't feel the need to argue but saw the sense in that. He met Diggle's gaze once more in mirror, was almost tempted to scowl, but returned his rueful half-smile instead.

  
Oliver allowed himself to be still and listened to the sounds surrounding him. The car wheels turning underneath, the wind moving outside, Diggle's steady breathing, and Felicity's quiet snoring at his side. She was warm, and despite what he knew about his own hang-ups regarding human contact, a soothing weight against him. It touched Oliver, but also worried him, how much trust she willingly placed in him; the feeling pulling guiltily inside him. She was so vulnerable like this, and yet so willing to give over her safety to him. Felicity knew how dangerous his life could be, but could she still not understand how dangerous  _he_  was? How dangerous he was to her? She trusted him too much, both she and Diggle did, and he was terrified of that.   
  
Weirdly, Oliver suddenly imagined what Felicity would say to him if she were awake and able to hear what he was thinking. No doubt she’d roll her eyes, tell him he was being stupid, and remind him that they both knew what they were doing when they chose to fight alongside him. (“We’re big girls, Oliver! Or... I’m a big girl. Digg’s not. He’s a big boy---man! He’s a big man. I mean obviously he’s a big man, just look at those arms. I mean…”) Oliver realized he was smiling. He hoped it was only a sign of exhaustion that even the imaginary Felicity inside his head only had to babble at him to make him forget all his fears and reservations. But she was right. Or… he was right. Felicity and Diggle both knew what it cost to stand beside him in this unending fight. And they were still here. It was the least he could do, in the end, to respect that trust they placed in him. And try his hardest to be worthy of it.   
  
  
Felicity shifted against him, bumping Oliver out of his introspection, and he noticed the fingers of the arm she was leaning on were beginning to tingle. It wasn't a big deal, but better not to let the hand go to sleep if he could help it, and so he began to very slowly ease his arm up and over, trying to jostle Felicity as little as possible as he did. It would have been better, perhaps, to let her fall back against her own seat again and to allow a little distance between them. Instead, Oliver let his arm to curl gently around her shoulders and drew her back to his side.  
  
Felicity's head dropped a little as he shifted her, and she stirred. “Oliver?”  
  
“Shh.” He leaned his head to hers, whispering into her crown. “It's okay, we're safe. We're headed back to Starling City. Go back to sleep.”  
  
“Mmkay.” She murmured, and burrowed deeper into his ribcage.  
  
She resumed the quiet snoring a minute later and Oliver slowly released the breath he hadn't quite realized he'd been holding.

  
“She asleep again?” Diggle's voice asked. There was hardly any light coming from outside anymore, too far away from either city they were coming from or going to, and he couldn't make out Diggle's face anymore. So instead of nodding like he would have preferred, Oliver whispered a “yeah” as loudly as he dared and assumed Diggle would hear.  
  
Outside they were passing what Oliver thought were the shadows of cornfields, with the occasional silhouette of a lone tree breaking up the landscape. Craning his neck against the car window, Oliver looked up toward the sky and had a sudden jolt of surprise at how bright the stars were. He tensed; he hadn't seen stars this clearly since the island, and expected to feel an unwelcome and terrifying memory crash on him at any moment. But nothing happened. The stars were bright, and they were beautiful, and Oliver was not on the island but with Diggle and Felicity, and they were going home.  
  
Oliver quietly watched the stars out the window for he wasn't sure how long, calmed by the familiar roll of Diggle's driving, and by the feeling of Felicity sleeping peacefully against him. He didn't bother fighting it when his eyes dropped shut again.


End file.
